Books

Books : reviews

Phillip I. Good, James W. Hardin.
Common Errors in Statistics: (and how to avoid them): 2nd edn.
Wiley. 2006

A tried-and-true guide to the proper application of statistics

Now in a second edition, the highly readable Common Errors in Statistics (and How to Avoid Them) lays a mathematically rigorous and readily accessible foundation for understanding statistical procedures, problems, and solutions. This handy field guide analyzes common mistakes, debunks popular myths, and helps readers to choose the best and most effective statistical technique for each of their tasks.

Written for both the newly minted academic and the professional who uses statistics in their work, the book covers creating a research plan, formulating a hypothesis, specifying sample size, checking assumptions, interpreting p-values and confidence intervals, building a model, data mining, Bayes’ Theorem, the bootstrap, and many other topics. The Second Edition has been extensively revised to include:

• Additional charts and graphs
• Two new chapters, Interpreting Reports and Which Regression Method?
• New sections on practical versus statistical significance and nonuniqueness in multivariate regression
• Added material from the authors’ online courses at statistics.com
• New material on unbalanced designs, report interpretation, and alternative modeling methods

With a final emphasis on both finding solutions and the great value of statistics when applied in the proper context, this book is eminently useful to students and professionals in the fields of research, industry, medicine, and government.